Do I need buttons for my trackball and spinner???

[spiffykyle]

So I'm in the process of designing my CP and among all the threads I have seen a few people mentioning not including dedicated buttons for the trackball and/or spinner, mainly to conserve space.

What are the pros and cons of doing this and how has it worked out for people who chose not to include seperate buttons?

I think it'd be nice for navigating windows to have mouse buttons, but this computer will be almost exclusively MAME and jukebox.

Thanks for the input.

spiffy

[pointdablame]

I like having 2 dedicated mouse buttons with my trackball because I like to play some Windows games through my cab. You could make 2 of the P1 buttons mouse buttons as well, but I don't like to do that.

If you won't be playing games like that, I think its useless to have dedicated buttons. Just use the buttons from P1 for any spinner/trackball games that need them.

[amerish]

I also have two buttons to the right of my trackball (left of my spinner). I use them as a mouse with the track ball. Of course since all the buttons on your control panel are assignable, you don't really need to have them next to the trackball or spinner.

[Encryptor]

I personally like the idea of having mouse buttons available should I need them. Depending on what emulator you use for your trackball will determine how many you have. I am using a Hagstrom KE4 for my trackball and spinner. One reason I chose that one was it allows for 3 mouse buttons to be hooked up. Personal preference is the name of the game in cabs.

Encryptor

[u_rebelscum]

With mame's remapping, you can have "hidden" mouse buttons.

Example:  A standard layout with 8-way - 6 buttons - TB - 8-way - 6 buttons layout.  Since mame doesn't care if the input is keyboard, joystick, or mouse (as long as it's mapped accordingly), but there's other games that need a mouse + buttons, others that only use the keyboard, and some that only one player can use the keyboard and the other must use a joystick/gamepad (EA sports): Player 1 keyboard stick + 4 keyboard buttons + 2 mouse buttons, Player 2 gamepad stick + 4 paamepad buttons + 2 mouse buttons as follows:

Left player buttons:
kbZ   kbX   kbC
kbA   mb1  mb2

Right player buttons:
j1b1   j1b2   j1b3
mb3  mb4   j1b4

With this setup, you can pay mouse only, keyboard only (1 player 4 buttons), or joystick only (1 p 4 b) games.  You can run normal windows mouse apps.  You can play 2 player games that limit the keyboard to one player.  You can play 4 button trackball games.  In mame, you can play 2 player 6 button games (if enabled mouse & joystick, and remapped).  You have available mouse buttons without "dedicated" buttons cluttering the panel.

The problems with this setup: You have to remap mame from it's defaults (once).  You might have to remap other games.  The mouse buttons are the four closest buttons to the TB, but are still hidden; people might have trouble finding and using them for mouse only apps.  Newbies to the CP might have trouble setting up new games or remapping from what you mapped.


Note that I do not have any CPs set up like this, as I prefer seperate CPs or modular CPs, but this was how I was going to go when I was still thinking of a franken-panel (years ago now).  I'm pretty sure I've seen a CP somewhat like this here, too.